


Contact

by banjkazfan



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, could be a ship if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5152301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banjkazfan/pseuds/banjkazfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsuna’s surprisingly squeamish about his X-Burner contacts.  He gets a lesson from the last person he’d expect to know about this sort of thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contact

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all! I'm pleased to be joining the Reborn fandom! Please accept my first offering. 
> 
> This could be Tsuna/Yamamoto if you squint. It takes place sometime during one of the filler arcs of the anime, mostly because I watched the anime before I read the manga and am more familiar with it, but I’m loose with canon because I borrow pieces of manga canon and put them into the anime canon…look at me, fresh into a fandom and breaking the rules already.
> 
> Possible warnings if you’re squeamish about the description of someone taking out their contacts. You're probably pretty safe to skim it, though.

“Please, Spanner, can’t I just leave them in?”

The young mechanic attempted to ignore the teen’s whining.  Tsuna had managed to get the X-Burner contacts in with little trouble (Spanner suspected that stress was the impetus there), but it had been a good three weeks since then and they weren’t designed for the kind of long-term wear the way that Tsuna wanted.

That is to say, they had to come out occasionally but it appeared that the kid had no desire to remove them.

“Vongola,” Spanner finally sighed, “whining at me won’t get them out.”

Tsuna had the good sense to look sheepish.  “S-sorry,” he murmured.  “I just don’t like the idea of taking them out!  Can’t you help me?”

Spanner’s answer was to wordlessly disentangle his hands from the Mosca he was working on and raise his oil-streaked digits for Tsuna to see.  “I don’t think you want me to do that,” he said, patience still present despite his annoyance at being interrupted.  “If you don’t want to do it, ask someone else to help you.”

Tsuna, properly chastised, nodded.  “Sorry to have bothered you, Spanner,” he mumbled weakly on his way out.  His stomach sank at the thought of having to ask one of his friends for help, but he could feel that the contacts were beginning to dry out.  He couldn’t wait any longer.

After a cursory search of the base showed it to be empty, Tsuna began to realize that this was something he was going to have to man up and do himself.  He drew up his shoulders and headed to the bathroom as if he was walking to his own execution.

Which is where Yamamoto found him, twenty minutes later, hands tightly gripping the sink and staring into its depths as if it had all the answers he could want in the world.

“Oi, Tsuna!” he greeted cheerfully.  “What are you up to?”

Tsuna jumped at the sound of Yamamoto’s voice, having been lost in his thoughts.  He turned to his friend then, grinning sheepishly.  “Yamamoto,” he replied.  “Are you just finishing training?”

The dark-haired teen nodded.  “Yup.  I’ve been at it since 5, haha!”

Tsuna felt a touch of warmth as he recognized just how hard his friends were working in order to save their future.  “Is Reborn working you hard?” he wondered, curious to know if the hitman was rough on everyone or just on Tsuna.

Yamamoto laughed, carefully removing his sword to set it against the wall.  “The little guy’s really tough,” he crowed.  “But I think I’m getting better!”

Tsuna couldn’t help the little grin that crossed his face.  “I know you are,” he said warmly.  It was then he noticed Yamamoto seemed to be waiting for something, and it clicked as to what that might be.  “S-sorry, did you need the sink?” Tsuna asked, stepping aside.

“Thanks!” Yamamoto chirped.  He took the sandy-haired teen’s place at the sink and began to wash his hands, humming softly to himself.

In the silence that followed, Tsuna considered asking Yamamoto for help.  His eyes darted down to the other’s hands, rubbing over each other to spread the soap, and he carefully considered it.

 _No,_ he finally decided.  _I can’t ask Yamamoto…I would be afraid to.  His hands are bigger than mine and I’m not even comfortable putting mine near my eyes…_

“Sorry I was in your way,” Tsuna apologized, idly wondering how he was going to get these things out.  Was it really worth the trouble?  Perhaps he could just leave them in…maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

Then he blinked and could feel the dryness scratching at his eyes.  He couldn’t leave them in forever.

“Oh, you’re fine!”  Yamamoto searched the cabinet for a moment before letting out a pleased noise and removing a bottle.  He set the bottle on the counter and returned to searching the cabinet.  “I just need to get these out before they dry, haha.”

Tsuna stopped dead, eyeing Yamamoto in shock.  “Wait…what?”

The other teen nodded.  “Yeah, if I don’t get my contacts into something they’ll dry out.”  He removed a small case from the cabinet and set it next to the bottle.

“W-wait, Yamamoto,” Tsuna said, still stuck on this new development.  “You wear contacts?!”  He was surprised that they had been friends for so long and this was something that he had not yet discovered.

“Aha, yeah, I guess you’ve never seen me with my glasses,” Yamamoto chuckled.  “My eyes are so bad I can’t go without, but I’m pretty careless with them. Plus I can’t wear them when I play baseball, so I got contacts!”  He unscrewed one of the tops of the case – Tsuna noted that there were two, likely for the two contacts, but he didn’t really know – and stared into the mirror.

Tsuna watched him, mouth agape.  “Can…can you teach me?”

Now Yamamoto turned his full attention to Tsuna.  “Teach you?” he repeated.  “Teach you what, Tsuna?”  His smile was pleasant and Tsuna was mortified at having to admit the truth.

“How…how to get them out,” he finally mumbled.  “Spanner helped me get my X-Burner contacts in three weeks ago and I haven’t been able to get them out yet…”

Yamamoto’s face darkened in concern as he stared into Tsuna’s umber eyes, the orange glow telling him that the X-Burner contacts were still in.  “Tsuna, you’ve had them in for three weeks and you haven’t taken them out?” he asked, leaning down slightly to look closer.  “Have you put anything in them?”  Tsuna’s blank look was all the answer that he needed.  So he hadn’t even put eye drops in them.  Yamamoto grimaced.  “Aren’t they dry?”

A helpless shrug answered Yamamoto, betraying Tsuna’s utter embarrassment.  “A little?” he said weakly, embarrassed beyond belief at being so clueless.  “Spanner said they’re okay to wear for more than a few days, but told me they have to come out soon so I can clean them.”

“Yeah,” Yamamoto agreed, “you don’t want them to get infected.  Here, I’ll show you.  Wash your hands first!”

Tsuna obeyed, recognizing that his own hands were pretty dirty.  As he washed, he turned it over in his head that he still couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed that Yamamoto wore contacts.  He supposed he had never looked closely enough, though it did explain the few times that Yamamoto had fallen asleep at his house and looked a touch grouchy in the morning until he was able to get into the bathroom.  In hindsight, Tsuna figured that having dried-out contacts sticking to your eyes was probably enough to make even the ever-cheerful Yamamoto uncomfortable.  Once his hands were cleaned and dried, he looked back at his friend to wait for instructions.

The older teen faced Tsuna; he preferred to look in the mirror when removing his contacts but knew he had to teach Tsuna.  “Alright, first step,” he said brightly.  “It helps if you hold your eye open so you don’t blink and miss, haha!”  He brought his left hand up to his face, placing his middle finger on the bottom of his lower left eyelid.  His right hand came up, the middle finger resting on his upper left eyelid.  “I know it feels weird, but you have to do this to get a clear shot at the lens.”  He applied gentle pressure on both fingers, leaving his eye open.  “Okay, you too!”

It sunk in at that moment that Yamamoto wasn’t actually going to remove the contact for him; he was going to show Tsuna how to do it.  Tsuna couldn’t tell which idea was less appealing: having Yamamoto’s fingers so close to his eyes, or having to have _his own_ fingers dangerously close to his eyes.

Tsuna’s hands shook as he carefully tried to repeat Yamamoto’s movements.   It took him a moment, but eventually Tsuna managed to finagle his hands into some semblance of Yamamoto’s instructions.  His eye was open and he was ready to continue.

Yamamoto allowed himself a brief blink before resuming the position and continuing to demonstrate.  “Then you just take your index finger aaaaaand…”  He carefully placed his index finger on the lens in his eye.

“ _Iiiieeee!_ ”  Tsuna couldn’t help the noise that slipped out as he watched Yamamoto carefully glide his finger across his eye.  “How do you _do that_?!  I can’t touch my eye!” he protested feebly, hands immediately retreating from his face.

Recovering from his shock at the noise that Tsuna had made, Yamamoto laughed kindly.  “If you do it right, you never actually touch your eye,” he promised.  “That only happens if you forget you already took out your contact and try to take it out again, haha!”  Tsuna winced, only able to imagine how Yamamoto had learned _that_ particular lesson.  “Yours is a soft lens, right?” the dark-haired teen asked.  Tsuna nodded, still a mixture of horrified and fascinated at how easily Yamamoto just _stuck his fingers so close to his eyeballs like that_.  “Just slide your lens to the corner of your eye until you can pluck it out!”  Tsuna shuddered as Yamamoto appeared to be scraping at the corner of his eye, but watched in awe when his friend finally withdrew his finger.  “See?  All done!”  He presented his hand so Tsuna could see the tiny lens sitting on the pad of his finger.  “Easy enough, right?” he asked, and Tsuna pondered how such a tiny lens could be the cause of so much of his own internal angst.  “You try now!” Yamamoto said encouragingly as he placed the lens in the blue case.

Tsuna licked his lips as he placed his hands the way they had been in the first step and haltingly drew his index finger closer to his eye.  He froze and caught Yamamoto’s eye – his golden-eyed friend watched him with an expectant grin dancing on his face.  When he saw Tsuna’s hesitation, he nodded encouragingly.

At last, Tsuna bit his lip so hard he expected to draw blood as he finally slid his finger onto the lens.  He let out a yelp when it hit him that he was _actually touching the lens_ \- and it really wasn’t as bad as he had thought.  A surprised gasp escaped his lips as he grinned at Yamamoto.  “This isn’t too bad,” he said, a touch breathless.

Yamamoto’s smile shone in return.  “Great!  You’re already halfway there!  Now you just have to move it to the corner of your eye and get it out!”

A nervous swallow bobbed in his throat as he took a moment to collect himself before slowly sliding the lens.  He shuddered at the initial feel of it, but noted that it wasn’t as horrible a process as he had previously expected.  A strange combination of a cringe and a laugh bubbled out as the lens began to bunch up and almost roll out of his eye; it fell out but was saved by sticking to his face.  Tsuna looked in the mirror, momentarily mystified by the sight of the tiny lens clinging to his cheek.

Such a tiny thing packed with such electronic capability, and it all fit into his eye.

He was startled by Yamamoto carefully reaching across the space between them.  “Oi, let me get that before it falls,” he chuckled.  A small flush bloomed on the reluctant boss’s face as Yamamoto delicately plucked the lens off of his cheek.  “Do you have a case for them?” he asked.

Tsuna shook his head.  “No, we didn’t do anything like that.  With everything happening, it wasn’t a priority.”

“Mn, makes sense.”  The swordsman carefully held Tsuna’s lens on one finger as he rummaged in the cabinet with his free hand.  “I think I have a spare in here.  Ah, here it is!”  He extracted an orange case and handed it to Tsuna.  “If you pop it open, I’ll put your lens in,” he said cheerfully.

Nodding, Tsuna complied and managed to fumble the tiny case open.  He offered it to Yamamoto, who gently placed the lens in.  “We’ll put some of this on it then,” the older teen said as he held up the bottle of contact solution.  “You’ve got to put enough in here that it stays wet, otherwise your contact will dry up!”

Tsuna nodded, listening intently now, and Yamamoto was caught off-guard by the imbalance of Tsuna’s eyes.  The contacts really brought out the orange in them, and now he was seeing Tsuna with only one in.  One eye was that umber color he had gotten used to, but one was still the striking orange glow that he had come to expect when seeing Tsuna in his Dying Will.  He swallowed and handed Tsuna the bottle.

Once the contact was properly moistened, Yamamoto took the bottle back.  “Ready to take out the other one?” he asked.  Tsuna nodded, but it was clear his hands were still a little uncertain as to what to do.  “Here, watch one more time,” Yamamoto said, a patient smile on his face.  His long fingers came up once more in an opposing movement from earlier.  His right middle finger rested on his lower right eyelid, and his left hand came up, the middle finger resting on the upper eyelid.  Tsuna belatedly realized that Yamamoto’s forearm was resting across the top of his head and he briefly wondered if he had looked ridiculous when doing the same thing.  It didn’t look any kind of comfortable, but the older teen seemed relaxed and used to the motion as he removed the contact, trying to go slowly to show Tsuna once more.  Tsuna felt a flash of guilt at his earlier thought about Yamamoto’s hands.  He had mistakenly assumed that those same hands which handled the weight of a sword like nothing wouldn’t be gentle enough to remove his contacts.

It was only then that Tsuna understood that Yamamoto had wanted to teach him how, rather than just doing it for him.

It was that thought which allowed him to remove his second contact, far more easily than the second one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read! There could be a small follow-up to this, but I'll mark it as complete for now. Please feel free to share feedback with me - it's always very much appreciated!


End file.
